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Ivan Illich

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Ivan Illich

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Also known as Ivan D. Illich, Ivan Dominic Illich

Austrian philosopher and theologian (1926–2002)

AI overview

Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher and theologian who lived from 1926 to 2002 and became known for his critical analysis of modern institutions and society. His work matters because he challenged conventional assumptions about how schools, hospitals, and other systems actually serve people, influencing debates about education and social progress that continue today.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
4 September 1926
Died
2 December 2002
Works
116

Top works

  • Deschooling Society
  • Niḳmat ha-refuʾah
  • Ivan Illich et la société conviviale
  • America latina: parole come armi
  • Ivan Illich

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
New York

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
35
Total plays
527

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Ivan+illich">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Ivan illich

Quotes

  • People need new tools to work with rather than new tools that work for them.
  • In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
  • Homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency. Bacteria are imagined to mimic "economic" behavior and to engage in internecine competition for the scarce oxygen available in their environment. A cosmic struggle among ever more complex forms of life has become the anthropic foundational myth of the scientific age.
  • I intend to discuss some perplexing issues which are raised once we embrace the hypothesis that society can be deschooled; to search for criteria which may help us distinguish institutions which merit development because they support learning in a deschooled milieu; and to clarify those personal goals which would foster the advent of an Age of Leisure (schole) as opposed to an economy dominated by service industries.
  • Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being "with it," yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation.
  • Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn’t organised to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
Ivan Dominic Illich , ( 1926-09-04 ) September 4, 1926, Vienna , Austria
Died
December 2, 2002 (2002-12-02) (aged 76), Bremen , Germany
Era
Contemporary philosophy
Region
Western philosophy
School
Christian philosophy
Main interests
Philosophy of education philosophy of technology

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Official website
www.ivanillich.org.mx
Image
1969 press photo of Ivan Illich.jpg
Show 3 more facts
date of birth
1926-09-04
date of death
2002-12-02
Commons category
Ivan Illich
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~25 min read

Article

Ivan Dominic Illich (/ɪˈvɑːn ˈɪlɪtʃ/ iv-AHN IL-itch; German: [ˈiːvan ˈɪlɪtʃ]; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book Deschooling Society criticises modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that he argued demotivates and alienates individuals from the process of learning. His 1975 book Medical Nemesis, importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of medical harm, in which he argues that industrialised society impairs quality of life through processes such as overmedicalisation, the pathologisation of normal conditions, and increased dependency on medical institutions. Illich called himself "an errant pilgrim."

Biography

Gallery (2)

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